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Monday, October 29, 2012

South Platte 2012 10 27 or How much longer before I will go skiing instead of fishing

Last week I spent on a road trip with my family, heading West to Utah and then South and back towards Denver. We enjoyed just hanging out, soaked in some hot springs, took walks and hikes, saw some spectacular scenery in our National Parks and visited a few small few towns along the way. But we had to cut the trip one stop short and headed straight home from Montrose, taking the scenic route on Highway 50 and then 285.

While I wasn't able to wet a line during the trip, coming home a day early allowed me to head up to the South Platte once more after a pretty good day two weeks earlier. Expectations were sort of "there" given last trips experience; I hoped to encounter another BWO hatch that would allow us to pluck some unsuspecting trout. Well, the weather was not really what BWOs like, the sun was out, warming us up a bit although it was still kind of chilly, especially when the wind came up.

We started fishing further upstream at one of the picnic pull-offs. While it seems that Phil hooked fairly quickly into some fish, it took me a while to hook one. The first action I encountered seems to have been a fish being foul hooked since all I was able to retrieve after a quick dart was a scale on the hook point. Soon though I was able to land my first rainbow of the day; not a big fish but nice and I was pleasantly surprised how my new Daiwa 43MF handled the fish without any problems.

The morning moved on with a few more hookups but fishing was less than hot. We decided to move to the Deckers section of the South Platte and were pleasantly surprised that we had the river to ourselves. This section is typically overrun with people and "combat" fishing is typically what you have to endure. And once we got settled in the river we saw some fish rising again to some small sailboats. I switched back to a small size 16 green thread kebari with some grizzly hackle and tried to present it afloat, knowing well that it was too big compared to the size 20 bluewinged olives coming downstream. The wind was once more challenging but I still managed to fool two nice rainbows that went for my fake bug.

We continued to fish for a few more hours and a few hookups but none to hand. Fish were continuing to rise but the BWOs were gone and I couldn't figure out what they were going for. I settled in watching one enormous rainbow, a true torpedo, at least 25" long taking something small off the surface, at times very delicately and sometimes like a true veracious predator.

I won't be fooled though, Fall is in full swing. Last week we had about 3" of snow while we were gone. Temperatures can dip any day into the 20ies at night and daytime highs can be anything between 40 and 70. Winter is coming for sure I think that I will likely be hitting the slopes instead of the river when its really cold.

But all being said, yet another good day on the South Platte in good company.

40ft? Nice....! I have been using last Sunday the Tenkarabum no. 4, maybe 16ft plus tippet. I had to adjust my casting since I now have been used to cast softer rods but the no. 4 works just fine. Maybe next time if there is little wind I will try the a no. 3.

Howard, thanks. During the last 2 1/2 years since I discovered Tenkara I only fished once with with "Western" fly rod and that was in the salt for redfish. I think Tenkara is well suited for the fishing here in the Rockies.

Who....?

My home is currently London where I moved to in 2015 from Denver, Colorado, where I started fishing tenkara in 2010. I grew up in Switzerland, then spent a few years in Vienna/Austria and moved then to the New York City area where I met my wife. I learned fly fishing in 1998 in the Austrian Alps while living Vienna/Austria.